Delhi High Court verdict on nursery admissions Tuesday

New Delhi, Feb 18 (IANS) The Delhi High Court Tuesday will pronounce its verdict on a petition challenging two government notifications empowering unaided private schools to formulate their own criteria on nursery admission.

A division bench of Chief Justice D. Murugesan and Justice V.K. Jain will pass the order.

The central government had earlier informed the court that the Right to Education (RTE) law did not apply to nursery admissions and a state government may have its own policies for this class.

Additional Solicitor General Rajeeve Mehra, appearing for the central government, told the court that as per section 13 of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, children between the age 6-14 years were covered by the provisions for free and compulsory elementary education.

He added that the children below the age of six were not covered under the act but the "state government may make necessary arrangement for providing free pre-school education to such children".

The central government's reply came after bench had asked it to clarify whether the RTE law applied to nursery admissions and, if it did, what procedure was to be followed for it

NGO Social Jurist filed the PIL against the two notifications of the union human resource development ministry and the Delhi government's directorate of education, empowering unaided private schools to formulate their own nursery admission criteria.

The PIL by the NGO through advocate Ashok Agarwal alleged that these two notifications had given a free hand to all unaided recognized private schools.

The PIL has alleged that the notifications gave "a totally free hand to all unaided recognised private schools to formulate their own nursery admission criteria based on categorisation of children...".

It said the categorisations of kids in admission have specifically been barred by the RTE Act, adding that some schools still give preferences in admission on grounds such as religion, alumni and siblings studying there.